Kitap 8
6.40
The remaining tropes are employed solely to adorn and enhance our style without any reference to the meaning. For the epithet, of which the correct translation is appositum, though some call it sequens, is clearly an ornament. Poets employ it with special frequency and freedom, since for them it is sufficient that the epithet should suit the word to which it is applied: consequently we shall not blame them when they speak of white teeth or liquid wine. Georg. III. 364. But in oratory an epithet is redundant unless it has some point. Now it will only have point when it adds something to the meaning, as for instance in the following: O abominable crime, O hideous lust!
6.41
But its decorative effect is greatest when it is metaphorical, as in the phrases unbridled greed Cic. in Cat. I. x. 25. or those mad piles of masonry. Pro Mil. xx. 53. The epithet is generally made into a trope by the addition of something to it, as when Virgil speaks of disgraceful poverty or sad old age. Aen. vi. 276 and 275. Here the addition is metonymy, turpis and tristis both substituting effect in place of cause: cp. § 27. But the nature of this form of embellishment is such that, while style is bare and inelegant without any epithets at all, it is overloaded when a large number are employed.
